Beginning
by Brooke1
Summary: Final part of the Spike POV BX story. Read "Losing" to get the timeline. Character deaths.


Title: Beginning

Author: Brooke 

Email: yabbadabbadome13@yahoo.com 

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I got this sweet Porn Star sticker and I put it on my laptop. I own that…the sticker not the laptop. Buffy and friends are owned by Joss, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, The UPN and whoever else has rights to the show. 

Summary: Spike's POV is completely fragmented. It's B/S dwelling and B/X in reality.

Distribution: I don't know why anybody would want this, but if somebody does…sure. 

Feedback: Definitely!! Tell me if it sucked or if you liked it. Whatever. Just write back!

Authors Note #1: This is a narrative and I wrote it very quickly, which is why there is a lack of complete sentences. Just telling you in case it got confusing. Also you might want to read "Shifting", "Beating", "Breaking, "Possessing", and "Losing" to get the full affect. 

Authors Note #2: Assume that everything, season 1 through 7, is fair game.

This is archived at my group The Unattainable: 

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She didn't come back to the house right away. I knew that she went to the hospital and I knew that Willow was there too. Good on me that the witch's presence would mean little to no chance for reconciliation between the Slayer and her boy. I needed that assurance for the simple fact that I knew that Buffy was dead set on getting him back.

She knew that it was unlikely…I knew that it was unlikely. But she was a fighter, she was going to try, she wasn't going to give up. Never give up on that useless nothing of a twit.

So, I went to her. I always go to her.

Found her in the parking lot. Alone. I laughed as I watched her from the shadows, leaning up against her car and hugging her coat around herself, head down. Thinking. Her eyes were closed for the briefest second and that gave her away. They were closed until a light wind blew by and her head snapped up – eyes open and focused straight ahead, locked on me through the darkness that surrounded me.

Buffy could always see through it. Through the dark and the pain and the muck that had swallowed me whole. Just a bat of her eyes and she was throwing me a life line…saving me from the certain death that only that perpetual abyss can provide. She saw me through it, always. She saw me through it that night, with or without her bleedin heart crippled and broken just yards away from her. She wasn't in there with it – with him. She was out…with me.

Wearing a steady smirk I approached her. Slow measured steps. Studying her lack of reaction. She just stayed and watched, acknowledging with her eyes, hugging herself a little bit tighter. 

Cold out.

"Spike…"

"Thought you'd be in there declaring your eternal devotion to the whelp right about now." I had had enough of Buffy's talk. Enough of her fight or flight. Enough of her abuse. I could see her through the darkness too. The real her. It was about bloody time she listened to what I have to say.

"Is that what you came here for?" Her voice was hollow and cold. "To rub Xander's face in it some more?" She stood straight and faced me, taking a protective step back towards the hospital. "I won't let you hurt him anymore, Spike."

"I didn't, luv." I stayed put. This wasn't about squabbling. "You hurt him. I saved him." I took great pride in the fact that her hard demeanor wavered when her eyes fell back to the ground.

"What do you want then?" 

I loved it when she begged. I don't think even she realized it, but the resignation was oozing from her voice.

Beg.

"If you're going to stay, then great. Help. Fight." Her eyes looked up and met mine. "We can use you…need you…"

"You need me." A plain and simple fact, but I watched her recoil with a cold sneer.

"We need you. The world. If we lose the world is going to end. You'd be surprised how little *this* has to do with me." She was detached and empty sounding. I wondered if she had gone in and had been turned away again. I wondered if Harris knew that every time he sent her back out into the night was one more step to finality. One more step that she was edging closer and closer to me.

I shrugged. "What's it matter if I don't fight then. What is it if not for yourself, right pet?"

Her laugh was as cynical as her tone and she actually seemed to consider what I had said. What was it worth? Love? Posh. Love came and went. Love was a trick that your heart played on your mind and you mind played right back. Fuck love. So why fight? Buffy's voice was soft when she finally did speak. "I've got something worth fighting for…"

"Harris?" I wish that it hadn't come out so snidely right at that moment, but I didn't really believe that could possibly be a sole reason. "If you fight for him, you'll lose." I watched her eyes concentrate with pure venom and hatred. I could hear her heart pounding in the borderline rage that built when I repeated just what he had said to her, what seemed like eons ago. "Remember?" I was going to have her. If she wanted the fight, I wanted to be the one to give it to her.

"Yes." She grit out. "Xander, my heart, my love, my salvation…my town, my friends, my family, the future. I've got something to fight for." Buffy turned away from me then, but didn't rush back towards the hospital. She wasn't welcomed there, and both she and I knew that. "More than I can say for you."

I chuckled and she stopped and turned slightly, hesitating and shutting her eyes for another moment. "You know, Spike." She spoke in an almost whimsical voice. "If you don't have anything worth fighting for, you've got nothing worth living for."

"Who told you that?" My question caused her further pause and she didn't even notice me approaching her subtly while she thought of an answer. Didn't matter. I didn't really care, but it kept her still…let me get closer.

Her mouth curled into a small smile. Dumb bitch, didn't she see? Didn't she know? "Xander."

"He stole it. He's not clever enough to come up with philosophical rubbish like that…"

"Doesn't make it any less true." She wanted to believe in him because she needed to believe in something. He did the same with her for much, much longer.

She finally noticed how close I had gotten. I knew because her heart sped up more and she sucked in a startled breath when she looked up at me. "Makes your boy a thief and a liar." They'll have that last one in common.

"So don't fight." She fortified herself again. Jaw set and eyes fierce. "I don't need you."

But you do. You do…

"Slayer…" I brought my hand up and I could feel her blush through my fingertips when I reached towards her. I let the pads of my fingers ghost past her hair but never touched. She wasn't ready for me to touch her yet. 

Almost.

"Did your blind poet ever tell you the best part of your precious fight?" I could smell apprehension…no – fear…taste fear in that minuscule head shake. 

"Don't ever talk about him…"

"Not the planning or the weapons."

"Spike. Leave."

Oh how she wanted to move. Run. Turn back time and not know what she did. Not know what was going to happen.

"Not the tingling alertness of the battle or the adrenaline. Did he ever tell you that?"

 She opened her mouth to speak again. Probably to tell me to get out of her life again, but I kept going. It was my time and hers, thus far, was being borrowed from me.

I know she didn't see it. She was watching my eyes, not my hands.

"Well, remember it then, Slayer, cuz I'll let you in on the secret now." I leant in close, smelling her hair and feeling her shudder. "It's the end."

I had never held anything so tightly as I did that rock. Never swung anything so hard or suddenly. Never revealed in the wet crack of that kind of contact. Amazing what sounds the human skull can make…cracking simultaneously with her muted scream when she couldn't pull away fast enough.

She was easy to hoist into the backseat of the car. And even easier to carry into my crypt. Buffy's much more manageable when she's not talking. When she rises…when she's my childe, I'll tell her and she'll make the necessary adjustments. 

When she's mine.

I carried her to the lower level of my crypt. Rising might take longer than the Scoobies will give me. They'd search for her, and they'd come here first.

Well, they might search for her, if they were smart. They need her. Like me, they need her – to save the world. To save them.

Buffy was always beautiful when she was in my bed. This was no exception. This was better because now, completely and fully, she belonged to me.

I tried to rest her so that she looked comfortable. Buffy slept on her back…I lay her down like that. Made sure that her hair fell just right against the pillow. In my combing my fingers grazed over the matted bloody area that the rock had connected with. "Pet," I murmured. "You've made a mess here. I'll clean it up for you." I always did. 

I wet an old shirt in a bowl of water and sat back next to her, dabbing the blood away and trying to rinse the crimson from the blond hair. She lay peacefully and let me. "There." I tossed the rag to the floor. "I don't know why you're always so pithy and short with me, pet. I only want what's best for you. To help you. I love you, Buffy."

I leant forward to her ear and said it again. Her hair…the scent and the blood, the lingering aroma of fear. She smelt perfect. I kissed her jaw line and let my hand skim down over her shoulder, over her chest and down to her stomach – touching her bare skin. Still fiery hot.

The corner of her mouth that I tasted with the tip of my tongue, the uneven huffs of her breath ghosting over my skin. Time was running out. I closed my lips over hers. Kissing her like I used to. She used to respond to it, but now it was just me. I wanted her to wake up and finally kiss me back. Finally thank me and love me and say it out loud. Say what she was feeling just to me. 

I slid my lips down over her cheek again. "I just want you to realize it Buffy." I was whispering because this moment felt sacred. This was just us. Just about us and Buffy giving her soul to me. "Realize that you love me…" I didn't feel my grip change on her side until I smelt fresh blood in the room. I pulled my hand out from beneath her shirt and examined my fingers; stained with her blood again…I couldn't help bringing it to my lips, tasting her.

The growl bubbled out again. How did Buffy manage it? Sweetness from every pore…running though her veins and making her who she was…who I wanted. She was beyond the Slayer, and the fact that her blood was the most sinfully addictive I had ever tasted proved that. I eyed her again, still unmoving and vulnerable…like she is when she's in love, I dare to think. "You don't know what I have to do for you, Buffy. What I have to do every day." I felt tears start to sting my eyes but shook them away…shook my true self out and took deep breaths. "I have to do this for you…for us." My mouth grazed over the weak but still pulsing artery in her throat. "I can take you lying to Harris…but I can't let you lie to yourself." Her brief unconscious groan was concurrent with my first bite, and I drank.

It was quite while I watched her. A full day and into the night. I knew that her gang was worried. I had popped by her house that afternoon, running in with a thick blanket over my head and pretending to sound astonished that they had heard nothing from the Slayer for well over twenty four hours. I told Giles that I had seen her on patrol the night before around 11. That covered her leaving the hospital.

"Did she see you?" The Watcher sounded and looked dubious of me. Rightfully so, I assume. I had bashed his Slayers head in and then turned her, but he didn't know that. I told him that there was no reason to be so snippy and got slammed back into a wall for my efforts. 

Willow saved me from the inevitable punch by saying that Buffy had left Xander's room around 10:15. "We need to look for her," the Wicca said anxiously. "Something's wrong…it feels wrong." Giles agreed, and I said I would help, just to mollify them. After all, I was expected to be worried that the woman I loved had turned up missing.

I pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat, not even her breathing cutting the silence. That had stopped the night before. She was changing right before my eyes. She was becoming my immortal splendor. Mine.

I inched closer to the side of the bed and studied her features, even the wound on the side of her head was healing. She still looked so perfect that it made me hate her even more. I'd have an eternity to make her feel what that felt like. What my hatred was like, and she would beg me to love her again. I wouldn't until the moment that she did. It was just a matter of time. 

Between one breath and the next her eyes opened on a deep inhale. Wide and piercingly clear greenish-blue focused on the ceiling.

"Pet?" I called to her when she remained locked in position on the bed. "Buffy?"

Her arm finally bent and her questing fingertips ran over the side of her neck…over the place where I had fed from her.

"Stay calm, luv." I reached for her slowly. "It's alright…I…I'm here…"

She sat quickly and stood at the side of the bed. Her eyes were hollow in a way that I had never seen them and I had to stand to face her – the bed between us. "Buffy?" Her stare boring straight through me and making me feel even colder. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I was finally faced with her. She was my childe, yes. An unsure fledgling, yes. But also a turned Slayer. That was unheard of.

"Spike…"

My name was a whisper on her lips and I watched her relax and her vampire face slip out. Even as a demon she was beautiful, I thought as I crossed the bed to stand in front of her. I ran my fingers lightly over the ridge over her right eye and she turned into my hand, raising her eyes to lock with mine. "Buffy…I…I love you."

Her eyes shut and she kept her tone almost inaudibly low. "You turned me."

"I did." I bent my head to catch her eyes should she choose to open them. When she did I gasped at the orangish flecks in the yellow irises. I had never seen that…like fire in her gaze… "You're mine. Forever." I slid my hand on her face to her chin and tilted her face up closer to mine, covering her lips with mine before she could pull away…growling when I felt her kiss me back. Her mouth moved hard against mine, but she resisted when I tried to guide her back to the bed – stayed standing and did the impossible…kissed me harder…her fangs closing around my tongue.

I pulled back with a start, wiping at the blood trickling from my mouth with my thumb. "Easy, pet." She licked her lips, ridding them of the crimson, and grinned. A cold, heartless expression that made my throat rumble in anticipation. What had I done…created? I couldn't wait to find out the extent of what she could do. Buffy was strong because of the Slayer, what would the vampire offer? Oh so much fun to be had finding out. "Are you hungry?"

Her grin remained as she nodded. She licked her lips again and my eyes locked on her tongue.

"Want to go find something?" I leered back, matching her expression. "Someone?" This time she shook her head. "Oh…" My interest was peaked. "Would you be interested in working up a bigger appetite then?"

Buffy shrugged her shoulders and took short languid steps toward me. "Spike," she said finally when she was pressed against my front.

I hadn't felt it when I had carried her in here, or when I had laid her down. I hadn't seen it when she slipped it from her waistband, and I hadn't been paying attention when she yanked my face down to hers with one hand and engaged me in another hard kiss. 

I did feel it though. The piercing through my heart when I stumbled back with wide eyes. Buffy was still smiling. 

"As my blond poet once said," her voice holding an evil glee while I felt myself fading away, the last thing I was hearing...My sweet Buffy's voice laughing at me. "It's the end".

~*~

I've always felt the night. The dark and the cold…it always surrounded me. But I never *was* the night. I had been in it, but now I was it. It didn't surround me, it invaded me. Melted through my pores and invaded everything inside. The night…it was never so delicious in the past.

I took my time walking. Calm and measured steps – just listening to everything that was going on around me…and there was so much. The noise. The screams. The whispers. The misplaced laughter ringing out over the agonizing shrieks coming from the very earth beneath us all…

What was coming, I had no idea about before, but now I could feel it. It's absolute magnitude. I was part of it and it was calling me.

I watched a group of kids joking and laughing while they moved down the opposite sidewalk. High schoolers…so alive and happy and ignorant to who was watching them and what they could do.

"Ms. Summers?!" One of the girls called. It made me smile… she trusted me…I imagined how I could single handedly devour them all. Use the trust and make them die slowly, but I just waved back to them. I fought that growl in my stomach and just waved. 

Later. Almost there.

I could hear she still talking as I started to walk away. "I'm busy," I took the time to call back, but still never turned. I don't have to care when I'm not on the clock anyway. I wouldn't have to care about arrogant little teenagers ever again…another plus side.

Just feeling everything made the walk seem much faster than it ever had in the past. Maybe, I thought, I had used some extra power without even considering it. Was this what Angel felt like? Why he was able to sneak up so well? Was he at his destination before even he realized it?

Just in the nick of time, too, it seemed. 

I watched Willow ushering Xander up to the path to my porch. He wasn't leaning on her fully at all…I grinned at the fact that she would never have the pleasure of that…but that was beyond the point. She loved him and she was offering all of the support and help that she could. That's what friend's did. That's what she would always do for him. She was always his protector against things I couldn't fight, or when I was too busy trying to fight, or against me…

Always protecting him.

"Is Buffy here?" Xander asked and I picked up the tenor of his voice easily in the neighbors yard.

"Should be." Willow's voice offered a slightly humorous chuckle. "Hopefully." She still didn't know exactly what had happened between us those few days ago, but when I had been at the hospital that night…

That universe altering night – I knew that she had pinpointed it down to something that I had done. No matter if that was true, it was the simple fact that she knew that Xander would never hurt me, so if we weren't together and he was hurt, I must have dome something to him.

She never understood that she wasn't the only woman capable of loving him completely. Willow never got that I would do anything for that man. Never had that much faith in me.

"It's her house." 

I growled. I liked the noise, the anger and hatred that it released. That bitch would walk into my home with my lover and have the nerve and the gall to doubt me. Hate me. Despise me in my home because I was – am – everything that she will never be. Have everything that she will never have. That's what friendship is, after all. People in a never-ending battle to best each other.

I won. 

They walked up the porch steps carefully and I wanted to shout it out. I win. How would that feel Willow? Knowing that I won and cashed out before you could do anything about it? Knowing that you would always be the loser?

"I want to stay outside for a little bit, Wills." Xander's voice again. He could feel me. He knew…he had to know that I was out here and he wanted to wait for me. He had to. It was who he was and how he saw me…felt me…how we were. Connected beyond anything that Willow would ever even be capable of imagining.

"It's not safe, Xan." Awww…so worried. She was trying to urge him towards the house again, but Xander resisted. 

"Do me a favor." Willow released him when he made his request.

"No I won't ever stop fussing over you." That held a more overt laugh.

"Naw, Willow. I'd never ask you that. Your fussing saved me." His forced chuckled died by the end of the statement. "You always care when no one else does. Couldn't live without that."

Her? Right. What about when I saved him.

When I protected him.

I did that too.

"Good." Willow sounded pleased, but didn't notice that Xander still made no move towards the entrance of my house. "It's dark out, so lets…"

"I know it's not safe," Xander was looking out over the lawn. His gaze falling just to the left of me and I watched him study that space. So close to me that it would be impossible for him not to know that I was here. He turned suddenly and met his best friend's eyes. "Then send me a Slayer out for protection."

Me. 

My smile was genuine when I watched Willow nod and shuffle into the house. Xander wanted me. It was odd – you don't have to like somebody to love them. The fact was simple and I knew as well as Willow did, Xander loved me.

I moved quietly toward him as soon as I heard the door click shut behind Willow. "Xander." I whispered just loud enough to make him turn once I had positioned myself on the side of the house – making it look like I had come from the back yard. I saw him start and turn fully around – hearing me, but seeing nothing. I could see him.

"Xander." I called again, more decisively, now standing on the ground in front of the porch.

"Buff," he sighed and I could hear his relief. "Didn't anybody ever tell you not to sneak up on a guy who's just had a head trauma?"

I laughed a little because he did. I didn't really think it was funny, but it was how Xander coped. I walked up onto the porch to face him levelly and cast a quick glance into the living room through the closed curtains. People were moving around, but I saw nothing that revealed Willow was near again. "I'm glad you're home." I said finally. Xander shifted when he saw me studying the bandage on his left eye.

"I'm going to get a patch," he said nervously. "Once…"

I reached out and traced the outline of the gauze, brushing some of the hair away from his forehead. He flinched away and I withdrew slightly. "Sorry." Caleb did this to him. Pure evil did this…but they had never met the likes of a Slayer like me. I would make everything vile pay for hurting him. Spike, if he could, would stand testimony to that. Well, he's more of a 'blowing in the wind testimony', at least.

"No." Xander's hand felt like searing fire when he grabbed mine out of mid air. Touched me again after so long and I don't know why I felt the sudden need to take a deep breath. "You're cold." he whispered and pulled my hand up to his mouth, holding it between the two of his and blowing into the cradle. 

I cast a glance back into the house and heard Willow's voice again. Asking if anybody had seen me. I forced myself to not dwell on the feel of Xander rubbing my hands together between his own. "It's cold." I offered a half smile and he stilled his ministrations. "Let's walk." I turned my palm in his and interlaced the fingers of his right hand in my left.

He looked doubtful for a moment, but I squeezed lightly. "You sure you don't want to go in. I'm sure Giles has tea…"

I tugged him a step forward and hoped he wouldn't pick up my rising anxiousness. "I…" Remind myself to look unsure. "I want to walk. Just us." Look up through my eyelashes. "Please."

He gave, and when I turned my back to him for the briefest second while leading him down the sidewalk I smiled. I won.

"Xander..." I heard the front door open but I knew that we were out of sight and human earshot of the house when Willow finally did return. "She's not hom…Xander?"

There was silence for a long time. A lot of the time Xander and I had to work out our problems with screaming or quiet. Two opposite poles that both let us get everything out.

"Where are we going?" He asked finally, his hand still in mine. "My place?" I nodded, not really paying attention. "I don't know how much more I can walk…"

I whirled on him. Xander and I had made this walk numerous times in the past. "Does it hurt?" He nodded with out shame and I stopped. He didn't notice, or didn't protest my slight maneuvering into a small shop doorway on the empty street. 

"Feels like somebody stabbed out my eye and filled the socket with fire ants. They're having a party in there."

That wasn't funny either and I didn't try to laugh. I just ran my fingers over his cheek again and looked at him. Looked at what I had done to him. "I don't want you to hurt, Xander."

"Part of life." He sounded nervous when I leant up and pressed my lips to his forehead, then to his cheek. "Buffy…I don't think…"

"Shh." I pressed my finger to his lips to silence him, and he watched me. "I'm sorry I hurt you." I purposely kissed his chin next. He wasn't ready to let go completely even though he wanted to. Down, over his jaw, behind his ear.

"Buff…"

You don't have to hurt Xander. I can protect you from that, too.

His hands on my shoulders, but not really pushing me away. "May…maybe we should go back to your place. Willow's going to freak. I didn't tell he…"

It tickled when I changed. Made my whole face tingle and I pressed my fangs into my bottom lip slightly before I opened my mouth and closed it over the side of Xander's neck. His voice broke off when I started to drink. When I took my first feed. I held him tighter when I felt his knees buckle and he gave out slightly. Most of his strength was going into pushing at my shoulders now, but it wasn't enough.

I forced myself to stop and pull back from him. His blood still on my lips and I licked at what was left. "Xander," I pressed his body back into the doorway to steady him, and with one hand reached up to tilt his limp head back so that his eye met mine. It was unfocused and he was breathing shallower. "Even if I lose, you're worth the fight." He groaned. "Remember?" I scratched my nail over the skin on the right side on my neck, drawing blood. "If you don't have anything worth fighting for, you've got nothing worth living for."

I pulled him up and pressed his mouth to the scratch I had made. He didn't move for a moment and I pressed him harder. Needing him to do this before it was too late…and I felt his tongue flick out over the wound, his mouth close over it lightly and I held him until he relaxed. His head lolled back and he released a shaky breath. "It's worth dying for." His eyes shut and his words came out on a wheezed huff of air. "If it's not worth dying for…it's not worth living for…"

I did kiss him then, even when he didn't respond. "I love you, Xander." I scooped his limp body up and headed further into a neighboring ally. I could take the back way to the cemetery and Spike's crypt wasn't the worse possible place to rise. 

His pain would stop soon and we would be together. I would wait forever for him…to be worthy of him…

It's a funny thing about life's journey. It always ends in deaths.

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The End (for real this time)


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